Monday, December 30

One day, while escapadeing on a long pinterest spree, I ran across a quote
that really struck me. It basically asked, "Why are teenagers treated like
children, but expected to act like adults?"
During an average child's first ten to twelve years of life,
everything is like fairy land. No bills to pay, no job to work, no school to
cram, no drama to maneuver through, the list is endless! The most pressing of
your concerns is when you'll have to go to bed. Nothing ever goes wrong, nor
ever feels terribly wrong either.
Then you hit your teenage years, when your body begins to act
like an unpredictable, explosive, casino machine. All the sudden your physical
appearance goes from a solid five to a negative six, and shoots around down
there every five minutes. Worst part about this, is that as soon as your body
pulls out the braces, acne, growth spurts, glasses, and fields of sprouting
hair, you emerge from childhood and suddenly find that you actually care about
your appearance, just as all of the awkward gifts of puberty hit in unison. Not
only is there basically nothing you can do about the obvious changes happening,
(besides wait six years for when your body derails from the roller coaster it
has just jumped onto), but you find your brain is holding its own assault
against you in the same room.
Being a female, I can go on for hours about the horrific
chemical mountains I've had to climb up and then promptly hurl myself from. On
an average day, I can jump from happy to angry to sad to ultra-depressed and
then finish off as a malicious evil villain, who laughs insanely at everything
within a ten mile radius. You might wonder if anything brings about these
dramatic changes in emotion. Well,NO.In the quick succession of a few
minutes I can hit rock bottom, and shoot to the zenith of happiness, all while
sitting alone in a bare room with only a chair for entertainment. Just to put
things into perspective, picture yourself, (as a female) on an occasion when
you find yourself in a room full of other teenage girls. While looking around you
suddenly have this mini heart attack as you realize you've just landed yourself
into a pool of fellow, half-crazed-demons, who could decide they love or hate
you by just your appearance. Instead of doing the most rational thing and
dialing 911, you find yourself sitting down and conversing with these ticking
time bombs as though the situation made you feel at ease. You tread carefully,
but as you glance around the room you see that others haven’t been so meticulous
in their movements, and within a few minutes the room is vibrating with the
sound of explosions and cracking timbers.
So, in retrospect of the many alarming changes which have
labeled teens as mentally disabled throughout mental studies, everyone above
and below the adolescent years has paranoid notions about those who are. One of
the funniest things I find about being a teen, is that everyone who doesn't
want to try and change you, wants to hide you away somewhere where you can't
plan terrorist attacks on their houses in the future. The image of teens
blowing things up and setting things on fire seems to have obscured the view of
many older people, to the point some will downright shoot you paranoid glances
across the street. On the flip side of their caution
however, it seems that older people can’t get enough of placing responsibility
on teenagers shoulders. Everything ends up falling onto our laps at one point
or another. Being older than the younger kids,
we know how- and can do, a lot more; mirroring that, since we are younger than
the adults we have less liberties to say no when we don't want to do something.
We get to take care of the kids, make dinner, clean the house, get jobs, make
HUGE life decisions about our future, keep perfect grades and social life, and
then figure out who we are on the side lines. The injustice of the situation is
astounding. How can someone who treats the very word ‘teenager’ like a rotten
fruit, feel okay piling work onto their shoulders?
Why are teenagers treated differently than everyone else and yet expected to
function as adults? The simple answer in my mind is
perspective. All humans view things, the way they want to. Though not ready to address
the growing age of adolescence, most recognize the ability to work when they
see it, and therefore utilize this. Though I’m sure there are many other
reasons at work in the odd placement teenagers have been set in, the most vital
one is the one we use most often. What we see most often holds less value than
what we’ve labeled in our minds.

(Side excursion.) You might have noticed that I pointedly didn’t
address the problems of teenage boys. Since I am not a male, I don’t feel I’m
very qualified to sit here and describe their emotional state, other than the
sad dislocation of the mental ability to understand what’s stupid, and okay to
do. So, despite what you guessed. No, I didn't forget about them, just chose to glaze over that part).

Monday, December 9

Let’s face it, the Doctor is spine-tinglingly,
heart-stoppingly fantastic. He is smart, super adorable, kind, HOT
(David *cough*), funny, sarcastic, eloquent and caring. He whisks your heart
away with a mere flick of his sonic screwdriver and that mysterious twinkle in
his eyes we've all come to adore. He makes you feel special and important. He
makes you feel worth something. Why on earth wouldn't everyone want to be his
companion? You'd travel the galaxy, meet strange- exotic creatures,
breathe in air from alien planets- good grief; you could even slip back in time
and meet Queen Elizabeth and Christopher Columbus! (Just to make learning about
them in history worth it.) Best part? You can do all that, more, and arrive
home the same day you left! So who wouldn't want to travel with the
doctor?

ME.

Before you hurl my breathing carcass into a creator of liquid plasma, or set a heard of zombies to abduct me in the night, let me explain why!

-1-

So we all know those moments where the doctor in a mad rush of jumbled, scientific, space-talk will shout something like, "PRESS THAT BLUE BUTTON THERE ON THE CONCOL, (which is the size of a pin needle and covered under a clutter of wires), OR WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE..."

Want to know what would happen?

We would all die.

First of all, when I'm flustered I can barely string together a pair
of coherent words. On top of that I suddenly become about as intelligent as a
small fig leaf, and would likely end up getting the doctor in a whole lot of
messes due to my brilliant way of messing up simple instructions. (As well as
destroy the whole galaxy.) It just wouldn't be good for either of us, not to
mention everyone else.
Because of my empathy for the many difficult situations
the Doctor's friends often get placed in, I have this huge respect for the
doctor's companions, especially their way of narrowly escaping messing up his
ambiguous instructions. (Moment of silent respect for companions.)

-2-

Alright, I'm not sure if it's just me, but the episode to this
very day that still creeps me out is... the waters of mars. Just picture
yourself happily bouncing along at the Doctor's side, trying out french-fried
flavored beverages and purple mushrooms, and then suddenly one of those water
pumping, dead guys jumps out at you.

My heart would literally stop
pumping blood to my brain.

I would be so overcome with terror my bodily functions would
just screech to a halt and send me plunging face first into the asphalt to make
a nice easy lunch for any hungry monsters passing by. As a result, the Doctor
would probably be so shocked by my abrupt abandonment from consciousness that
he might just leave me there... the only other alternative would be to roll me
back on a stretcher as I murmured deliriously and spewed crazed foam from my
lips. (Because that sounds FUN.) On my short arrival back to earth I would
spent the rest of my life in abject paranoia, and tormented insomnia, of everything.

-3-

So, aside from my failure at life and dead fainting at creepy things, what else could there possibly be to make me a worse companion? Brace yourself.

You know how most companions come up with these witty remarks to the doctor's tangents about his brilliance. Me? I'd be like: "What did you just say?", or something along the lines of, "I like rocks... rocks are nice." and nod like I had some idea of what was going on. My compatibility with the Doctor would be about as charming as a deaf turtle.

I'm not saying I'm not funny, quite the
contrary, I think I'm hilarious. (I know what you’re thinking... don't you dare
say it.) It's just that the Doctor often seems to get kicks out of other people
getting kicks out of his jokes, and sadly at times, I feel I would just be so
far beyond comprehending what the heck he was talking about that I would end up
receiving an awkward doctor face.

-4-

Remember that episode where Amy ends up falling into the digestive fluids of a whale? Do you remember how disgusting that was?

I'm sure she does.
Being a girl, (which really has nothing to do with it), I
detest getting muck all over my body. If it’s below my shoulders, I can handle
it. If it’s on my face, or in my hair, FIND ME A SHOWER. I've had
friends rub sheep heart across my jeans; I've had friends stick slugs on my
arms. However, get anywhere near my face and your life is over I don't care how
close we are.
I like how in doctor who, at one point every companion has this
ghastly experience with some alien atrocity and ends up getting covered in the
stuff. I especially like how the first thing out of their mouth when they see
the Doctor isn't, "SOAP PLEASE." and more along the lines of,
"so where are we going next?"
This is a very large reason I would utterly fail at being a
companion. My desire for adventure is not as strong as my desire to be clean.

-5-

I wonder if one of the secret requirements for being a
companion is that you must have been on the track team all four years of high
school. I swear, every episode that man is charging down some other three mile
corridor just to get to a button, then back to grab a fez. His companions,
without complaint, just run right after him as agile as muscular horses. Half
the time I wait with baited breath for one of them to collapse, or else
frantically clutch their side and shriek about a bad stitch or inflamed muscle.
I wait for the moment when just one of them will stagger against the wall,
panting like a wheezing giraffe; but does it come? NOPE. Those companions just
keep on sprinting Gimli style, nearly invincible to the small ailments of mere
out-of-shape humans.
Then there's me. I'd likely trip right off a mountain side
without knowing it was there, and then collapse in a fit of hyperventilating frantics
because I've never run all day like my life depended on it. (I'm glad to say
that's because it hasn't.)

-6-

On arrival to some distant, exotic planet, the first words out of my mouth would be something like: "Why can't I get wifi connection on my laptop?"

"You have the power to shape galaxies, change time itself, and you can't get a simple WIFI CONNECTION?"

"If you can't get my wifi going..."
"Then what's the point of you?"

I mean, clearly Rory being erased from all time and space is a LITTLE LESS important than my ability to search cool words on the thesaurus and stalk my X-boyfriend.

Altogether these reasons pretty much make up why I would be such a terrible companion. I may love the Doctor, but I would find myself fully inadequate to be by his side.